The Commuter’s Ballad

The Commuter’s Ballad

Four hours a day, the wheels would turn,
Iron rails and engines burn.
Seven long years, the timetables lied,
While his patience wore thin with each jolting ride.

A paperback shield, his daily disguise,
Pages devoured as the landscape flies.
And sometimes a can, harsh comfort he knew,
Special Brew fizz to dull the view.

Strikes in the morning, delays in the rain,
The curse of the lost ticket, all for the train.
Bosses demanded he prove his worth,
While home pulled him back to the hearth.

“Be earlier,” they begged, as ambitions grew tall,
He balanced the scales, yet could not please all.
A soldier of steel tracks, bound to the fight,
Haunted by day, softened by night.

Yet love found its way through paper and pen,
Letters exchanged, again and again.
A long-distance promise, ink-sealed and true,
A whisper of hope on each carriage he knew.

So count all the hours, the rumble, the sway,
The man on the train still lives in the grey.
But hidden within the monotony’s strife,
Were words and a woman who shaped him a life.